Zu
Zu is kind of an oddity as far as moons go, in that it's broken and non-spherical. It's has a little more mass than Earth's moon but it's all broken up. At some point in the distant past, someone or something broke shattered Zu into a few dozen pieces and the only thing holding them all together is an unusual psionic phenomenon known as the Gerhart Effect, which is believed to be a natural occurrence of static psychic energies that create a magnetizing effect. The Gerhart Effect is all that holds Zu together and allows it to remain a stellar presence capable of affecting the tides, were the effect to ever cease all those chunks would rain down on Uwibami. This is more than a little terrifying for astronomers, because every few years the static charges seem to flash and pulsate, and it's impossible to tell whether the bonds are getting stronger or getting weaker. Zu has a lot of potential for stellar harvesters. It's believed to be the single largest source of fresh, raw mineral ores which could be easily gathered in the whole system.. If anyone could effectively get to it. The Gerhart Effect makes it just about impossible to get close, if one of the pulsating psionic waves flashes at an inopportune moment, any and every mechanical object more complex than a pulley or lever goes dead, gets magnetized, and ends up sticking to the exposed core of a small planetoid. Even Mechanoids aren't immune to this, and there's known to be at least a couple dozen stuck out there with their ships, equipment, and any poor fool who was in one. The only reliable way to actually get at those potential riches would be to have a host of skilled wizards or psychics who could keep some still-theoretical sort of shield up for hours, maybe days on end, to get at all the ores. Suffice it to say, most groups that have such resources generally need to allocate them elsewhere for less strenuous tasks that have a higher chance of success. People have been trying other means to get at Zu since space travel became possible, though. There are several bases that have been painstakingly set up, occasionally abandoned, and taken over by other groups over the course of the years. They're not cheap to maintain but they've got lots of uses- some are deep mining ops trying to get to the moon's core, though that's difficult since the crust and mantle are both made of a particularly stubborn but ultimately worthless material called Whisperdust Rock; stuff is harder than granite in its natural state, but try to smelt it and it chips, flakes, melts, and becomes a hallucinogenic gas. Popular with dentists and druggies, but not very practical for industrial purposes. Other moon bases are astrological posts, studying the stars, watching for signs and omens. Some are military or paramilitary operations, owned by governments, privateers, or pirates, keeping an eye on the cosmos for signs of invaders or prey. Once, an old Inixian corporation that went defunct tried to set up a zero g sports arena, but the oxygen requirements were way too high. These stations are not cheap to maintain by any means, but most people who can afford them say they're well worth the cost. Uwibami Back to Main Page